The present invention relates generally to the fields of hierarchy determination, and more particularly to the determination of geometric shape hierarchy.
A bounding region algorithm is often used to generate, for example, geographical maps. In this context, a bounding region algorithm returns a map that provides the desired geographical areas at a maximum possible zoom. For example, if a user requests a map showing two or more geographical areas, e.g. states or provinces, a bounding region algorithm will generate a map with borders that include just enough area to view the requested areas.